20th Century Perspectives

how did the logical positivists change philosophical focus

logical positivists changed the focus of philosophical enquiry from whether a sentence is true to whether a sentence is meaningful.

what did the Vienna circle believe about language

only statements that can be verified empirically or logical (in the case of analytical statements) are meaningful.

what two forms of verifiable language did the logical positivists accept?

- analytical propositions (a priori)
- synthetic propositions (a posteriori)

what did the logical positivist call their theory on meaningful language?

the verification principle

what did A.J Ayer add to the Verification Principle

he noted that in science sometimes a scientist may know how to verify something in theory but is unable to do so in practise, his view is still meaningful because it can be verified - a statement can be verified in practise or theory

what did A.J Ayer believe about religious language?

religious language could not be verified even in principle and is therefore meaningless.

what are A.J Ayers levels of verification

- strong verification - empirically tested conclusively, eg. being something for yourself.
- weak verification - empirical evidence suggests it is true, often refers to things that happen in the past or may happen in the future.

what was the name of the debate held between the logical positivists and those who wanted to defend religious language in 1950's Oxford?

The Falsification Symposium

how was Anthony Flew's view similar to the logical positivists?

brought a challenge similar to that of the positivists except instead of basing on whether religious beliefs can be verified but whether they can be falsified.

what is Flews view on falsification

Said that for a statement to be meaningful it must be falsifiable, in other words you needed to know what might prove a statement to be false, even if it is true - Flew applied falsification to religion claiming that religious language is meaningless.

how did Flew explain his views?

the parable of the Gardener - ‘There must be a gardener who is invisible, intangible, insensible to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden he loves. At last the sceptic despairs ‘what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even no gardener at all?’